~Tuesday~ I was up at 7:00 and out at the city bus stop at 7:45. There was a man there with earbuds in, who did at least acknowledge me with a nod, if not with a response to my, “Good morning.” It was a little nipply out at 61°, and the bus was annoyingly late, not arriving until 8:00.
The Little Old Gray-Haired Lady Driver was at the helm, and evidently she was trying to make up for lost time, as she went barreling through the Kaplan and Gorman intersection, scraping the hell out of the front end of the bus in the process.
A little kid in the back of the bus talked loudly the entire ride with many intermittent screams, to which the mother only said “Hush!” when the other little one back there screamed in tandem. I guess it’s good—for her—that she was bothered neither by the noise her children were making in a public space nor by an apparent unfamiliarity with the concept of an inside voice. She even laughed after a couple of the screams, as if she thought it was the cutest thing since misbehaving children.
I had an incredibly busy work day today, with only one meeting in the morning.
Over lunch, I met a young lady I talked to several months ago about the technical communication profession. She got a temporary job in the field, and she wanted to talk to me about how it was going. It was a very interesting lunch, during which I felt professionally affirmed in a number of ways.
On the way back to the office, I got a couple of slices of pizza from Amore’s. When I said to the guy, “I’ll have one slice of the ham and pineapple,” he said back, “Okay, one slice of The Hawaiian, and what else?”
My first thought was, “Well, that was an unnecessary correction,” and then I thought, “I wonder what’s Hawaiian about ham. I can see how pineapple would conjure up Hawaii, but I’m not so sure about that ham part.
I had a phone call with my dear friend, Steve, who suffered a heart attack a week-and-a-half ago, and it was good to catch up, and I’m so glad he’s still here. Scary stuff, as he’s only 40 years old.
I arrived at Cup A Joe Mission Valley at about 7:30, and I was surprised at how empty the place was. I suppose with the college kids being out for the summer, and a lot—if not most—leaving town, I should have expected it.
At about 8:50, I checked their website, where I confirmed that they close at 10:30 during the week.
At 9:07, the girl working there offered me a “to-go” cup for my coffee so she could take my ceramic mug, presumably to clean.
At precisely 9:08, the manager, or at least the “shift lead,” which I presumed he was because I heard him telling the girl what to do, said to me, “Sir, we’d like to clean this area if you don’t mind.”
Having “closed” working at Fast Food restaurants many times throughout my college years, I assumed they were trying to get a head start on that.
“Would you like me to just move over to the other section?” I asked, but when he hesitated in answering, I added with just a hint of a laugh to let him know I was just joking, but also to let him know how he was making me feel, “Or would you just like me to leave?”
Imagine my surprise when he responded, “If you could just leave, that would be great.”
Before SHIFTING INTO UPPER CASE, and in the parlance of one of Steven Covey‘s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” I calmly said, “You close at 10:30, right?”
To which he replied, “No, we closed at 9:00.”
“Oh? Because I just checked your website and it says 10:30.”
Still with no apology, and acting as if Cup A Joe Mission Valley couldn’t possibly be culpable in this misunderstanding in any way, he said, “There’s a sign on the door that says we’re closing at 9:00 all this week.”
OK, THE CUSTOMER IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! THERE, I SAID IT! IS THAT WHAT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR? UNCLE! UNCLE! UNCLE! Cup A Joe: 1 Customer: 0 CONGRATULATIONS!
I didn’t say that, but I sure did think it. Here’s a news flash. Not that anybody’s asking the customer what he thinks. “I don’t read your door every time I come here, because 99% of the time it says the same thing it said the last time I came here.”
Here’s a suggestion. Again, not that anybody’s asking or listening. At about 8:50 announce, “Folks, we’ll be closing in 10 minutes.”
This is the funniest damn Facebook status update that I’ve participated in in a long time!
